New Community Café at 5 Pancras Square

Lifeafterhummus @ 5 Pancras Square

Place Culture has been working with Camden Council since December 2024 to refresh the design and operating strategy for their landmark HQ at 5 Pancras Square. Designed by Bennetts Associates (our partners on this project) and opened in 2014, the building houses three public floors—library, contact centre, leisure centre—alongside the council’s offices.

It sits in a unique spot: Google’s UK headquarters on one side, and the diverse communities of Somers Town and St Pancras on the other. A hard-working civic hub by any measure.

Library users, students, jobseekers, and visitors all need affordable, everyday sustenance. Fortunately, Somers Town has no shortage of social roasteries and food co-ops, so it’s fitting that Lifeafterhummus has been appointed to run the new ground-floor community café.

Lifeafterhummus already supports 80 local households with a social supermarket and re-use centre, while redistributing food to 11 hostels and an after-school club. They also run “passive” clothing rails across local nurseries, a secondary school, and a library—powered by 50 volunteers who collect surplus from 45 stores every week.

This aligns squarely with Camden’s Food Mission, which pledges that by 2030 everyone will eat well every day: nutritious, affordable, sustainable food. Bringing that mission into libraries and civic buildings makes it tangible, visible, and real.